A brief season of civility
NYT mocked the Trump-Mamdani meeting while Fox saw a lesson in civic virtue
If the United States feels increasingly like two countries sharing a flag, nowhere is that divide clearer than in the media. We now live within two incompatible realities, each with its own heroes and villains, its own moral universes, even its own scientific truths. Understanding this requires seeing not just what these institutions publish, but the psychological worlds they invite readers and viewers to inhabit. On one side sits The New York Times, our paper of record, the Grey Lady of respectable liberalism. On the other, Fox News, the country’s most powerful conservative megaphone, and the last line of defense against liberal consensus. Or so they regard themselves. But these outlets don’t just report the news. They construct rival realities for two kinds of Americans that increasingly struggle to see each other as fellow countrymen. Last month, Syracuse University research writer Diane Sterling wrote:
Americans increasingly see the country as more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Pew Research Center polling reveals a sharp rise in partisan hostility: in 2022, 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats viewed the opposing party as more immoral than other Americans—up dramatically from 47% and 35% in 2016.
Trump’s rise triggered a shift in mainstream journalism toward a more open advocacy style. In 2013, the publisher and chairman of the Times, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., led the push to remake the International New York Times, which included traveling to sister papers abroad during the rebrand and rollout. He visited the Times’ sister paper in Seoul, where I was the head editor of the national news desk, and told me that the rebrand would result in an expanded and more opinionated paper, explicitly saying opinion pieces would now appear on the front page. After all, he said, no one waited for the paper to land on the front doorstep to get breaking news anymore, not when we’ve all got computers in our pockets. Instead, folks wanted to know what things meant, why they mattered, and what they should think of it all.
The People's Guide to Mamdani, Part One
In June, Zohran Kwame Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, leaving America one election away from placing a literal socialist who condones Islamic terrorism in charge of its largest city. And yet remarkably, not even his political enemies on the right seem to understand why this is a problem.
It sounded sensible enough, but the Times wasn’t merely interested in telling people what the news meant or why it mattered. It began to push a progressive political narrative. In 2014, the Times adopted language that leaned heavily into the “Hands up, don’t shoot” Ferguson coverage, which later Department of Justice reports concluded was not supported by the evidence. But The New York Times had grabbed the wolf of racial-justice framing by both ears, and could not let go. Since then, the paper has leaned in, ignoring all nuance in favor of progressive orthodoxy when it comes to an incredible range of issues. Again, they got there by framing Trump not simply as a political actor but as a democratic threat, a framing that gave editors moral permission to loosen traditional norms of neutrality, and though I am sympathetic the underlying argument about Trump, what emerged was a new journalistic posture that, in the name of defending our democracy, has trashed public trust in the media and left us even more divided than we ever were before.
In the years since, American politics has become such a hysterical post-truth circus, such an over-caffeinated mess, so permanently dialed to 11, that nothing seems capable of shocking us anymore. But then Americans elected a reality TV star as president, a socialist theater kid as the mayor of New York, and the two men, who have spent months calling each other fascists and communists with all the subtlety of a professional wrestling feud, got together this week and did something startling. They acted like adults. Was it performative? Assuredly. But a political spectacle can be contrived and still convey deeper meaning. And this oddly warm, faintly screwball encounter in the Oval Office, though it felt like something half-remembered from an Ayahuasca trip, also felt like a tiny yet desperately needed breach in the country’s permanent thunderstorm. How did the Times and Fox report the event? Shawn McCreesh, White House correspondent at The New York Times, wrote:
There was one moment in particular when Zohran Mamdani seemed like he might have bit off a little more than he could chew by making his lonely pilgrimage down to the lion’s den that is President Trump’s blinged-out Oval Office.
The 34-year-old mayor-elect of New York was pressed by a reporter if he thought his host, who was sitting about four inches away, was really “a fascist.”
How terribly awkward.
But before Mr. Mamdani could even get out one of his slick and diplomatic answers, the president jumped in to throw him a lifeline.
“That’s OK, you could just say, ‘Yes,’” Mr. Trump said, looking highly amused by the whole thing. He waved his hand, as if being called the worst term in the political dictionary was no big deal.
“OK, all right,” Mr. Mamdani said with a smile.
“It’s easier,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s easier than explaining it.” Chuckling good-naturedly, he reached up and gave Mr. Mamdani a pat on the arm. “I don’t mind,” he added.
It was like the oddest screwball buddy comedy in American politics. The “fascist” and the “communist.” The president and the mayor. The old man and the Young Turk.
Were these really the same two guys who had spent the last many months flicking acid darts at one another?
[…]
But if there is one thing Mr. Trump respects, it’s a winner. He made it clear Friday that he was impressed Mr. Mamdani had triumphed as an underdog against the political establishment. “He came out of nowhere,” the president said. “What’d you start off at, one or two? I watched, I said, ‘Who is this guy?’”
Mr. Trump also appreciates a good media spectacle, and he was keenly aware that he had one on his hands. “The press has eaten this thing up,” he marveled to the phalanx of cameras crowded into the Oval Office. “I’ve had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries, nobody cared. This meeting — you people have gone crazy.”
[…]
“By the way, being the mayor of New York City is a big deal,” the president of the United States said. “I always said, you know, one of the things I would have loved to be some day is the mayor of New York City.”
This is well-written, and funny, but for all his comedic color, McCreesh ultimately couldn’t resist taking constant jabs—small barbs that cumulatively tilt the entire narrative against both men, but especially against Trump. Even when McCreesh is describing cordiality, he keeps tilting the camera to make Trump—and, secondarily, Mamdani—look ridiculous or suspect. He opens by staging Mamdani as a naïf walking into Trump’s lair. “Lonely pilgrimage down to the lion’s den” isn’t neutral scene-setting. Then there’s the class-coded mockery in the description of Trump’s office, making the setting feel vulgar and tacky. And again, I tend to agree, but I’m not sure this moment is the place for those remarks. It subtly reminds the reader that Trump is gauche, unserious, nouveau-riche, and out of place in the White House.
The Death of the Newspaper
My father read several newspapers every morning, sometimes while smoking his pipe. He was an Air Force veteran, hobbyist carpenter, military boxer, and doting husband. I therefore grew up believing these were the manners of manhood and from a young age, I learned to measure and mark a board, pack a pipe, and slip a jab. I learned the love that a good ma…
The writer then frames the exchange as a “gotcha” scene where Mamdani is trapped and Trump theatrically magnanimous. Mamdani, “pressed” on whether Trump is a fascist, “bit off more than he could chew,” and is about to deliver a “slick and diplomatic answer.” The tone is, look at this faker squirming. And look, for the third time, I don’t really disagree. But I do think McCreesh gets it wrong when he depicts Trump’s moment of humor, framing his surprisingly magnanimous response to being called a “fascist” to his face as “as a moral failing. Trump waves off “the worst term in the political dictionary,” and the writer’s gloss is, Trump is unserious about serious accusations. The “buddy comedy” framing makes the meeting feel cheap and grotesque. “Oddest screwball buddy comedy.” “The fascist and the communist.” “The old man and the Young Turk.” These aren’t analytical frames. They exist to make you smirk, not think. Put simply, the Times can’t resist editorializing in adjectives and metaphors, documenting a moment of unexpected—and, it bears repeating, needed—cordiality through a lens of Trump-as-tacky-predator and Mamdani-as-glib-kid-in-over-his-head. The civic significance is swallowed by tone.
Now let’s turn the page and look at how Fox News columnist David Marcus, writing from the opposite ideological shore, saw the moment and what he wrote:
For almost an hour on Friday, President Donald Trump and mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani, who have spent months slinging mud and calling each other names, exhibited perfect Thanksgiving dinner decorum, and maybe we can all learn from it.
Going into the meeting, expectations ran high that tempers might flare. Would we see a repeat of the angry confab Trump had with Vlodymyr Zalenskyy months ago, full of fiery recriminations? But it turns out, that was never really in the cards.
[…]
The most telling moment came when Mamdani was pressed on whether he still believes that Trump is a fascist. Mamdani froze in the headlights, until Trump jumped in and said, “Just say yes,” adding that it was easier than explaining it.
Trump was acknowledging that in the hardball of politics, people throw names at each other, but also, that once the votes are counted, the winners have to work together, no matter if they slung epithets like fascist and communist quite freely.
[…]
For Mamdani’s part, he played the son-in-law very well, lots of smiling, standing deferentially alongside Trump, he was calm and reserved, almost like the 20-something cousins who suddenly decide to “take a walk,” a half hour before dinner.
There will be little to no backlash against Mamdani on the left for “humanizing” Trump during his visit, because his acolytes know he was just playing the game, like when former President Barack Obama pretended to oppose gay marriage based on his “deeply held” Christian beliefs.
But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a humanizing moment for Trump, at least for those who don’t already put his picture on dart boards. By foregoing Archie Bunker and channeling Mike Brady, Trump pulled off a “President Knows Best” holiday special.
[…]
Perhaps, as we enter the season of Advent next week, this is exactly what Americans needed to see: two men who could not be more polar opposites in the political imagination of their nation, nonetheless treating each other with dignity and respect.
And somewhere, I could almost sense First Lady Melania Trump, mirroring so many mothers and grandmothers this Turkey Day, whispering “Thank God,” when the fireworks never started, and the family made nice all the way through the pumpkin pie.
Unlike McCreesh, Marcus explicitly situates the meeting as a model for ordinary Americans. “Perfect Thanksgiving dinner decorum, and maybe we can all learn from it” is not a wink—it’s a thesis. He casts reporters, not politicians, as the troublemakers, “like teenagers trying to pick fights.” In his hands, the story becomes about adults refusing to perform hatred on cue. Trump’s “just say yes” moment is interpreted as democratic realism—winners have to work together—not as evidence of moral unseriousness. Even when Marcus needles Mamdani, it supports the coexistence theme. Namely, you don’t have to like each other to be decent. And his closing is overtly reconciliatory, arguing that this was “exactly what Americans needed to see.”
Even if it is performative, Sulzberger was right about one thing. The public does look to the news to understand what to think. And if Fox is telling its readers to see this and think, despite our political differences we are fellow Americans, while the Times uses it to tell its readers, this is a joke, who is the problem here? In a season defined by maximalism and mutual suspicion, Trump and Mamdani accidentally modeled something like civic coexistence. Not authentic agreement. Not true transformation. But even just the simple act of treating an opponent as a human being long enough to get through a photo op is something. For a country that’s forgotten what normal looks like, even a flicker of adulthood can serve as a plot twist.
Think of it this way: either Trump was civil to the incoming mayor of New York, or the streets around his buildings would be torn up or blocked off for the rest of his term. Hizzonor the Mayor may not have ultimate power, but he's got that much.